The pontificate of John IV., for the confirmation of which he had to wait four months, lasted only twenty-one months, and was disquieted throughout by the conflict with the Byzantine court and patriarch respecting the Ecthesis.(23) There was war between the exarch and the Lombard king, Rotharis, but it did not touch Rome. All misfortunes which threatened it came from Byzantium. The struggle against the eastern heresy embittered the feeling of Constantinople to Rome. At the same time, the Byzantine court was disturbed by intestine revolutions. Heraclius ended his reign of 31 years in February, 641. His eldest son, Heraclius Constantinus, succeeded, but, after seven months, was poisoned by his stepmother, Martina, and the Monothelite patriarch Pyrrhus was charged with concurrence. In a few months, Martina’s own son, Heracleonas, was deposed by an insurrection. His nose was cut off, and the tongue of the empress Martina cut out, and both were banished. The grandson of Heraclius, Constans II., became emperor in 642, a boy of twelve years, and reigned 26 years, until 668. The reign of this emperor is much to be noted, because it is contemporaneous with the second, third, and fourth chalifs: Constans II. stands in history over against Omar, Osman, and Ali. On the death of John IV., Theodorus, a Greek of Jerusalem, was made Pope: it is supposed by the influence of the exarch Isaac. He was the first of many Greeks, who, in this period, were made Popes: of all of whom, without exception, it is recorded that their integrity, as Popes, was in no way affected by any national feeling: they sacrificed nothing to Byzantine policy.